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Chapter One

How the U.S. "Special Relationship" with Israel came about

While many people are led to believe that U.S.
support for Israel is driven by the American establishment and U.S.
national interests, the facts don't support this theory. The reality is
that for decades U.S. foreign policy and defense experts opposed
supporting the creation of Israel. They then similarly opposed the
massive American funding and diplomatic support that sustained the
forcibly established state and that provided a blank check for its
aggressive expansion. They were simply outmaneuvered and eventually
replaced.

Like many American policies, U.S. Middle East policies are driven by a
special interest lobby. However, the Israel Lobby, as it is called
today in the U.S.[1], consists of vastly more than what most people envision in the word "lobby."

As this book will demonstrate, the Israel Lobby is considerably more
powerful and pervasive than other lobbies. Components of it, both
individuals and groups, have worked underground, secretly and even
illegally throughout its history, as documented by scholars and
participants.

And even though the movement for Israel has been operating in the
U.S. for over a hundred years, most Americans are completely unaware of
this movement and its attendant ideology – a measure of its unique
influence over public knowledge.

The success of this movement to achieve its goals, partly due to the
hidden nature of much of its activity, has been staggering. It has also
been at almost unimaginable cost.

It has led to massive tragedy in the Middle East: a hundred-year war of violence and loss; sacred land soaked in sorrow.
In addition, this movement has been profoundly damaging to the United States itself.

As we will see in this two-part examination of the pro-Israel
movement, it has targeted virtually every significant sector of American
society; worked to involve Americans in tragic, unnecessary, and
profoundly costly wars; dominated Congress for decades; increasingly
determined which candidates could become serious contenders for the U.S.
presidency; and promoted bigotry toward an entire population, religion
and culture.

It has promoted policies that have exposed Americans to growing
danger, and then exaggerated this danger (while disguising its cause),
fueling actions that dismember some of our nation's most fundamental
freedoms and cherished principles.[2]

All this for a population that is considerably smaller than New Jersey's.[3]

Chapter Two

The beginnings

The Israel Lobby in the U.S. is just the tip of an older and far
larger iceberg known as "political Zionism," an international movement
that began in the late 1800s with the goal of creating a Jewish
state somewhere in the world. In 1897 this movement, led by a European
journalist named Theodor [4],
coalesced in the First Zionist Congress, held in Basle, Switzerland,
which established the World Zionist Organization, representing 117
groups the first year; 900 the next.[5]

While Zionists considered such places as Argentina, Uganda, the Mediterranean island of Cyprus, and Texas,[6]
they eventually settled on Palestine for the location of their proposed
Jewish State, even though Palestine was already inhabited by a
population that was 93-96 percent non-Jewish. The best analysis says the
population was 96 percent Muslims and Christians[7], who owned 99 percent of the land.[8]

After the Zionist Congress, Vienna's rabbis sent two of their number
to explore Palestine as a possible Jewish state. These rabbis recognized
the obstacle that Palestinians presented to the plan, writing home:
"The bride is beautiful, but she is married to another man."[9]
Still, Zionists ultimately pushed forward. Numerous Zionist diary
entries, letters, and other documents show that they decided to push out
these non-Jews – financially, if possible; violently if necessary.[10]

Political Zionism in the U.S.

The importance of the United States to this movement was recognized
from early on. One of the founders of political Zionism, Max
Nordau, wrote a few years after the Basle conference, "Zionism's only
hope is the Jews of America."[11]

At that time, however, and for decades after, the large majority of
Jewish Americans were not Zionists. In fact, many actively opposed
Zionism. In the coming years, however, Zionists were to woo them
assiduously with every means at hand and the extent to which Nordau's
hope was eventually realized is indicated by the statement by a
prominent author on Jewish history, Naomi Cohen, writing in 2003, "but
for the financial support and political pressure of American Jews...
Israel might not have been born in 1948."[12]

Groups advocating the setting up of a Jewish state had first begun popping up around the United States in the 1880s.[13] Emma Lazarus, the poet whose words would adorn the Statue of Liberty, promoted Zionism throughout this decade.[14] A precursor to the Israeli flag was created in Boston in 1891.[15]

In 1887 President Grover Cleveland appointed a Jewish ambassador to
Turkey (seat of the Ottoman Empire, which at that time controlled
Palestine), because of Palestine's importance to Zionists. Jewish
historian David G. Dalin reports that presidents considered the Turkish
embassy important to "the growing number of Zionists within the American
Jewish electorate."[16]
Every president, both Republican and Democrat, followed this
precedent for the next 30 years. "During this era, the ambassadorship to
Turkey came to be considered a quasi-Jewish domain," writes Dalin. [17]

By the early 1890s organizations promoting Zionism existed in New
York, Chicago, Baltimore, Milwaukee, Boston, Philadelphia, and
Cleveland.[18]

Reports from the Zionist World Congress in Basle, which four
Americans had attended, gave this movement a major stimulus, galvanizing
Zionist activities in American cities that had large Jewish
populations.[19]

In 1897-98 Zionists founded numerous additional societies throughout
the East and the Midwest. In 1898 they converged in a first annual
conference of American Zionists, held in New York on July 4th. There they formed the Federation of American Zionists (FAZ).[20]

By the 1910s the number of Zionists in the U.S. approached 20,000 and
included lawyers, professors, and businessmen. Even in its infancy,
when it was still relatively weak, and represented only tiny fraction of
the American Jewish population, Zionism was becoming a movement to
which "Congressmen, particularly in the eastern cities, began to
listen."[21]

The movement continued to expand. By 1914 several additional
Zionist groups had formed, including Hadassah, the women's Zionist
organization.[22] By 1918 there were 200,000 Zionists in the U.S., and by 1948 this had grown to almost a million. [23]

From early on Zionists actively pushed their agenda in the media. One
Zionist organizer proudly proclaimed in 1912 "the zealous and incessant
propaganda which is carried on by countless societies." The Yiddish
press from a very early period espoused the Zionist cause. By 1923 every
New York Yiddish newspaper except one was Zionist. Yiddish dailies
reached 535,000 families in 1927.[24]

While Zionists were making major inroads in influencing Congress and
the media, State Department officials were less enamored with Zionists,
who they felt were trying to use the American government for a project
damaging to the United States. Unlike politicians, State Department
officials were not dependent on votes and campaign donations. They were
charged with recommending and implementing policies beneficial to all
Americans, not just one tiny sliver working on behalf of a foreign
entity. [25]

In memo after memo, year after year, U.S. diplomatic and military
experts pointed out that Zionism was counter to both U.S. interests and
principles.

While more examples will be discussed later, Secretary of State
Philander Knox was perhaps the first in the pattern of State
Department officials rejecting Zionist advances. In 1912, the Zionist
Literary Society approached the Taft administration for an endorsement.
Knox turned them down flat, noting that "problems of Zionism involve
certain matters primarily related to the interests of countries other
than our own."[26]

Despite that small setback in 1912, Zionists garnered a far more
significant victory in the same year, one that was to have enormous
consequences both internationally and in the United States and that was
part of a pattern of influence that continues through today.

Chapter Three

Louis Brandeis, Zionism, and the "Parushim"

In 1912 prominent Jewish American attorney Louis Brandeis, who was to go on to become a Supreme Court Justice, became a Zionist.[27] Within two years he became head of the international Zionist Central Office, newly moved to America from Germany.[28]

While Brandeis is an unusually well known Supreme Court Justice, most
Americans are unaware of the significant role he played in World War
I and of his connection to Palestine.

Some of this work was done with Felix Frankfurter, who became a Supreme Court Justice two decades later.
Perhaps the aspect of Brandeis that is least known to the general
public – and often even to academics – is the extent of his zealotry and
the degree to which he used covert methods to achieve his aims.

While today Brandeis is held in extremely high esteem by almost all
of us, there was significant opposition at the time to his appointment
to the Supreme Court, largely centered on widespread accusations of
unethical behavior. A typical example was the view that Brandeis was "a
man who has certain high ideals in his imagination, but who is utterly
unscrupulous, in method in reaching them."[29]

While today such criticisms of Brandeis are either ignored or attributed to political differences and/or "anti-Semitism,"[30] there is evidence suggesting that such views may have been more accurate than Brandeis partisans would like.

In 1982 historian Bruce Allen Murphy, in a book that won a
Certificate of Merit from the American Bar Association, reported that
Brandeis and Frankfurter had secretly collaborated over many years on
numerous covert political activities. Zionism was one of them.[31]

"[I]n one of the most unique arrangements in the Court's history,
Brandeis enlisted Frankfurter, then a professor at Harvard Law School,
as his paid political lobbyist and lieutenant," writes Murphy, in his
book The Brandeis/Frankfurter Connection: The Secret Political Activities of Two Supreme Court Justices.
"Working together over a period of 25 years, they placed a network of
disciples in positions of influence, and labored diligently for the
enactment of their desired programs."[32]

"This adroit use of the politically skillful Frankfurter as an
intermediary enabled Brandeis to keep his considerable political
endeavors hidden from the public," continues Murphy.[33]

Brandeis only mentioned the arrangement to one other person,
Murphy writes, "another Zionist lieutenant– Court of Appeals Judge
Julian Mack."[34]

One reason that Brandeis and Frankfurter kept the arrangement secret
was that such behavior by a sitting Supreme Court justice is considered
highly unethical. As an editorial in the New York Times pointed
out following the publication of Murphy's book, "... the
Brandeis-Frankfurter arrangement was wrong. It serves neither history
nor ethics to judge it more kindly, as some seem disposed to do... the
prolonged, meddlesome Brandeis-Frankfurter arrangement violates ethical
standards."

The Times reiterates a point also made by Murphy: the fact
that Brandeis and Frankfurter kept their arrangement secret demonstrated
that they knew it was unethical – or at least realized that the public
would view it as such: "They were dodging the public's appropriate
measure of fitness."[35]

Later, when Frankfurter himself became a Supreme Court Justice, he
used similar methods, "placing his own network of disciples in various
agencies and working through this network for the realization of his own
goals." These included both Zionist objectives and
"Frankfurter's
stewardship of FDR's programs to bring the U.S. into battle against
Hitler."[36]

Their activities, Murphy notes, were "part of a vast, carefully
planned and orchestrated political crusade undertaken first by
Brandeis through Frankfurter and then by Frankfurter on his own to
accomplish extrajudicial political goals."[37]

Frankfurter had joined the Harvard faculty in 1914 at the age of 31, a
post gained after a Brandeis-initiated donation from financier Jacob
Schiff to Harvard created a position for Frankfurter[38]
make a donation to Harvard to create a position for him. Then,
Murphy writes, "for the next 25 years, [Frankfurter] shaped the minds of
generations of the nation's most elite law students."[39]
After Brandeis become head of the American Zionist movement, he
"created an advisory council–an inner circle of his closest advisers–and
appointed Felix Frankfurter as one of its members."[40]

The Parushim

Even more surprising to this author – and even less well-known both
to the public and to academics – is Brandeis's membership in a secret
society that covertly pushed Zionism both in the U.S. and
internationally.[41]

Israeli professor Dr. Sarah Schmidt first reported this information in an article about the society published in 1978 in the American Jewish Historical Quarterly. She also devoted a chapter to the society in a 1995 book. Harvard author and former New York Times editor Peter Gross, sympathetic to Zionism[42], also reported on it in both in a book and several subsequent articles. [43]

According to Grose, a highly regarded author, Brandeis was a leader
of "an elitist secret society called the Parushim, the Hebrew word for
'Pharisees' and 'separate,' which grew out of Harvard's Menorah
Society."[44]

Schmidt writes: "The image that emerges of the Parushim is that of a
secret underground guerilla force determined to influence the course of
events in a quiet, anonymous way."

Grose writes that Brandeis used the Parushim "as a private intellectual cadre, a pool of manpower for various assignments."[45]
Brandeis recruited ambitious young men, often from Harvard, to work on
the Zionist cause – and further their careers in the process.

"As the Harvard men spread out across the land in their professional
pursuits," Grose reports, "their interests in Zionism were kept alive
by secretive exchanges and the trappings of a fraternal order. Each
invited initiate underwent a solemn ceremony, swearing the oath 'to
guard and to obey and to keep secret the laws and the labor of the
fellowship, its existence and its aims.'"[46]
At the secret initiation ceremony, new members were told:

"You are about to take a step which will bind you to a single cause
for all your life. You will for one year be subject to an absolute duty
whose call you will be impelled to heed at any time, in any place, and
at any cost. And ever after, until our purpose shall be accomplished,
you will be fellow of a brotherhood whose bond you will regard as
greater than any other in your life–dearer than that of family, of
school, of nation."[47]

While Brandeis was a key leader of the Parushim, an academic named
Horace M. Kallen was its founder, creating it in 1913. Kallen was an
academic first hired by Woodrow Wilson, who was then president of
Princeton, to teach English there.[48]
When Kallen founded the Parushim he was a philosophy professor at the
University of Wisconsin in Madison. Kallen is generally considered the
father of cultural pluralism.

In her book on Kallen, Schmidt includes more information on the
society in a chapter entitled, "Kallen's Secret Army: The Parushim."
She reports, "A member swearing allegiance to the Parushim felt
something of the spirit of commitment to a secret military fellowship." [49]

"Kallen invited no one to become a member until the candidate had
given specific assurances regarding devotion and resolution to the
Zionist cause," Schmidt writes, "and each initiate had to undergo a
rigorous analysis of his qualifications, loyalty, and willingness to
take orders from the Order's Executive Council."[50] Not surprisingly, it appears that Frankfurter was a member.[51]

'We must work silently, through education and infection'

Members of the Parushim were quite clear about the necessity of
keeping their activities secret. An early recruiter to the Parushim
explained: "An organization which has the aims we have must be
anonymous, must work silently,[52]
and through education and infection rather than through force and
noise." He wrote that to work openly would be "suicidal" for their
objective.[53]

Grose describes how the group worked toward achieving its goals: "The
members set about meeting people of influence here and there, casually,
on a friendly basis. They planted suggestions for action to further the
Zionist cause long before official government planners had come up with
anything."

"For example," Grose writes, "as early as November 1915, a leader of
the Parushim went around suggesting that the British might gain some
benefit from a formal declaration in support of a Jewish national
homeland in Palestine."[54] (There will be more on this in the next chapter.)

Brandeis was a close personal friend of President Woodrow Wilson and
used this position to advocate for the Zionist cause, at times serving
as a conduit between British Zionists and the president.[55]

In 1916 President Wilson named Brandeis to the Supreme Court. At that
time, as was required by standard ethics, Brandeis gave in to pressure
to officially resign from all his private clubs and affiliations,
including his leadership of Zionism. But behind the scenes he continued
this Zionist work, quietly receiving daily reports in his Supreme Court
chambers and issuing orders to his loyal lieutenants.[56]

When the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) was reorganized in
1918, Brandeis was listed as its "honorary president."

However, he was
more than just "honorary."

As historian Donald Neff writes, "Through his lieutenants, he
remained the power behind the throne." One of these lieutenants, of
course, was Frankfurter. [57]

Zionist membership expanded dramatically during World War I, despite
the efforts of some Jewish anti-Zionists, one of whom called the
movement a "foreign, un-American, racist, and separatist phenomenon."[58]

[1]
In Israel it is typically called "the Jewish lobby," perhaps reflective
of the fact that today virtually all the mainstream Jewish
organizations in the U.S., both religious and secular – the ADL, Jewish
Federations, Jewish Community Relations Councils, the Conference of
Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, Jewish Studies
departments, Hillels, etc – advocate for Israel. For a list see http://www.councilforthenationalinterest.org/new/lobby/
Benjamin Ginsberg, in the anthology Jews in American Politics,
notes that the "greatest triumph of American Jewish organizations
during the postwar period" was to secure recognition of the state of
Israel over the objections of the U.S. State and Defense Departments and
then to successfully urge the U.S. government to provide Israel with
billions of dollars over the subsequent decades.
Benjamin Ginsberg, "Identity and Politics: Dilemmas of Jewish Leadership in America" in Jews in American Politics, ed. Louis Sandy Maisel et al. (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2004), 9-10.
However, until World War II and Nazi atrocities against Jews, the
majority of Jewish Americans did not support Zionism. From its
beginnings in Germany, Reform Judaism had rejected Jewish nationalism,
and in the U.S. the Reform movement embraced universalism. Historian
Rafael Medoff writes that an 1885 proclamation specifically "denounced
the concept of a Jewish return to the land of Zion."
Rafael Medoff, Militant Zionism in America: The Rise and Impact of the Jabotinsky Movement in the United States, 1926-1948 (Alabama: University of Alabama Press, 2006), 26.
In 1897 the Central Conference of American Rabbis passed a resolution
that stated, "We affirm that the object of Judaism is not political nor
national, but spiritual, and addresses itself to the continuous growth
of peace, justice and love in the human race, to a messianic time when
all men will recognize that they form 'one great brotherhood' for the
establishment of God's kingdom on earth."
Naomi Cohen, The Americanization of Zionism, 1897-1948 (Hanover: Brandeis UP, 2003), 43.
Today's unanimity was only created after years of strenuous and
sometimes secretive (see Murphy, Sanua, Schmidt, and Smith) efforts to
overcome the objections of anti-Zionist Jewish individuals and
organizations, and even now, J.J. Goldberg's contention, made in his
informative book Jewish Power, may hold considerable truth: "…the
broader population of American Jews… are almost entirely unaware of the
work being done in their name."
J.J. Goldberg, Jewish Power: Inside the American Jewish Establishment (Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1996), 7.
Many people feel this is a profoundly unfortunate situation,
believing, as Israel professor Yosef Grodzinsky writes: "...the State of
Israel and its actions actually put world Jewry at risk."
Yosef Grodzinsky and Chris Spannos, "In the Shadow of the Holocaust," Znet, June 7, 2005, http://www.zcommunications.org/in-the-shadow-of-the-holocaust-by-yosef-grodzinsky.html.

[4] Herzl is considered the founder of political Zionism and is often referred to as "the father of Israel." His seminal book The Jewish State (1896) is online at http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/25282.
"Herzl devoted all his time to this movement, eventually dying at the
age of 44 leaving his family penniless. An article in the Israeli
newspaper Ha'aretz reports that his daughter Pauline suffered from
emotional problems from youth and eventually died of morphine addiction.
His son Hans converted to Christianity in 1924, at which time he was
abandoned by the Jewish community and denounced publicly. He committed
suicide following his sister's death. A book about Herzl's children was
written in the 1940s but was suppressed by the World
Zionist Organization, which decided to bury Pauline and Hans in
Bordeaux, despite their wish to be buried beside their father in
Austria, "probably to avoid tarnishing Herzl's image."
Assaf Uni, "Hans Herzl's Wish Comes True - 76 Years Later," Ha'aretz, September 19 2006. Online at http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/hans-herzl-s-wish-comes-true-76-years-later-1.197621.

[5] Kathleen Christison, Perceptions of Palestine: Their Influence on U.S. Middle East Policy, 1st ed. (Berkeley, Calif: University of California, 2000), 22.
John Herbert Davis, The Evasive Peace: a Study of the Zionist/Arab Problem, 1st American ed. (New York: New World Press, 1970), 1.
It was first called the Zionist Organization; its name officially
changed to the World Zionist Organization (WZO) in 1960. Most people use
the two names interchangeably.
According to the WZO website, today the organization "consists of the
following bodies: The World Zionist Unions, international Zionist
federations; and international organizations that define themselves as
Zionist, such as WIZO, Hadassah, Bnai-Brith, Maccabi, the International
Sephardic Federation, the three streams of world Judaism (Orthodox,
Conservative, Reform), delegation from the CIS – Commonwealth of
Independent States (former Soviet Union), the World Union of Jewish
Students (WUJS), and more."
"Mission Statement," World Zionist Organization, accessed January 1, 2014, http://www.wzo.org.il/Mission-Statement.

[6] John W. Mulhall, CSP, America and the Founding of Israel: an Investigation of the Morality of America's Role (Los Angeles: Deshon, 1995), 47-52.
"...the Galveston Immigration Scheme (GIS) brought 10,000 Jews to
Texas between 1906 and 1914; ITO [Jewish Territorial Organization] ran
GIS from 1907 until GIS ended at the start of World War I." (Mulhall, America, 52)

[7] Justin McCarthy, The Population of Palestine: Population Statistics of the Late Ottoman Period and the Mandate (New York: Columbia UP, 1990), 37.
See table 2.18, "The Population of Palestine by Religion, 1870 to 1946."
Walid Khalidi, "The Palestine Problem: An Overview," Journal of Palestine Studies 21.1 (1991): 5-16. Print. Online at http://www.palestine-studies.com/enakba/history/Khalidi,%20Walid_The%20Palestine%20Problem.pdf.
Khalidi discusses the Zionist plans and cites a Jewish population of
seven percent in 1897, but McCarthy provides fully documented and
explained numbers that indicate a Jewish population of four percent.
Additional resources on the pre-Israel population are:
Salman H. Abu-Sitta, Atlas of Palestine, 1917-1966 (London: Palestine Land Society, 2010).
Walid Khalidi, All That Remains: the Palestinian Villages Occupied and Depopulated by Israel in 1948 (Washington, D.C.: Institute for Palestine Studies, 1992).
British Mandatory Commission, A Survey of Palestine: Prepared in December 1945 and January 1946 for the Information of the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry (Washington, D.C.: Institute for Palestine Studies, 1991).Supplement to Survey of Palestine Notes Compiled for the Information of the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine (Washington, D.C.: Institute for Palestine Studies, 1991).

[10] Nur Masalha, Expulsion of the Palestinians: the Concept of "Transfer" in Zionist Political Thought, 1882-1948, 4th ed (Washington, D.C.: Institute for Palestine Studies, 2001), 10-13.
An example of the fanaticism to be found within some segments of the movement is represented by a statement by Dr. Israel Eldad:
"Israel is the Jews land… It was never the Arabs land, even when
virtually all of its inhabitants were Arab. Israel belongs to four
million Russian Jews despite the fact that they were not born here. It
is the land of nine million other Jews throughout the world, even if
they have no present plans to live in it."
Edwin M. Wright, The Great Zionist Cover-up: A Study and Interpretation (Cleveland: Northeast Ohio Committee on Middle East Understanding, 1975), 1.
Wright cites the Times of Israel, August 19, 1969, for the quote.
Eldad was a strategist for a pre-state underground militia who later
became a lecturer at several Israeli universities, authored a number of
books, and in 1988, was awarded Israel's Bialik Prize for his
contributions to Israeli thought.
Another example is described by Israeli Uri Avneri, who quotes a song
that was being sung while he was growing up in Palestine: (cited by
Wright, Zionist Cover-up, 9)
"We have returned, Young and Powerful
We have returned, We the Mighty
To conquer our Homeland, In a storm of War,
To redeem our land, with a lofty hand,
With blood and fire, Judea fell
With blood and fire, Judea shall rise."
Noted Israeli scholar Benjamin Beit-Hallahmi, writes: "There are
stories of how early Zionist leaders were unaware of the existence of a
native population in Palestine: they thought the land was uninhabited
and were shocked to discover the Arabs. It is hard to believe such
stories…"
He goes on to write: "Looking at the writings of Zionist leaders and
intellectuals at the turn of the century, we discover that the presence
of natives was not only known but recognized immediately as both a moral
issue and a practical question." Beit-Hallahmi quotes a number of such
writings from the late 1800s on. He reports that the leading Hebrew
periodical of its time, Hashiloah, "During the first decade of the
twentieth century… published scores of articles dealing with the Arab
national movement (using this exact term!)…"
Benjamin Beit-Hallahmi, Original Sins: Reflections on the History of Zionism and Israel (New York: Olive Branch, 1993), 72-77.
He gives several quotes demonstrating this knowledge.

[11] Dr. Max Nordau was a close associate of Theodor Herzl. This statement is quoted in the Maccabaean, Vol. 7 (1904). (Cohen, Americanization of Zionism,1)

[12] Cohen, Americanization of Zionism, 1.
She continued: "Indeed, the American Jewish investment in the
development and preservation of the Jewish state has continued to the
present day."
According to the Jewish Women's archive, Cohen was a "prolific author
and noted educator and academic [who] has achieved prominence as a
historian of the United States and Jewish Americans." She was on the
faculties of Hunter College of the City University of New York, the
Graduate Center of the City University of New York, and of the Jewish
Theological Seminary of America. Upon her retirement in 1996 she moved
to Israel.
Tamar Kaplan Appel, "Naomi W. Cohen," Jewish Women's Archive, accessed January 1, 2014, http://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/cohen-naomi-w.

[13]
An earlier project with both a domestic and international focus, "The
Board of Delegates of American Israelites," was organized in 1861, which
coalesced to block an effort by the Union during the Civil War to
prepare a constitutional amendment declaring America a Christian nation.(Goldberg, Jewish Power, 97)
In 1870 the group organized protest rallies around the country and
lobbied Congress to take action against reported Romanian pogroms that
had killed "thousands" of Jews. The chair of the Senate Foreign
Relations Committee suggested that such reports might be exaggerated,
but under pressure from the "Israelite" board, the Senate ordered the
committee to take up the matter with the State Department. Eventually,
it turned out the total killed had been zero. (Goldberg, Jewish Power, 98-99)
In their book on foreign lobbying in Washington, The Power Peddlers,
authors Russell Warren Howe and Sarah Hays Trott write that the
American Jewish Committee's history of Jewish lobbying on behalf of both
American and foreign Jews began in the mid-nineteenth century.
Russell Warren Howe and Sarah Hays Trott, The Power Peddlers: How Lobbyists Mold America's Foreign Policy (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1977), 284.
Howe and Trott write, "The first lobby link with Palestine came in
1881, when Jewish American groups wrote to General Lewis Wallace," the
author of Ben Hur and then U.S. minister to the Ottoman
Empire (which included Palestine), to intercede on behalf of American
Jews who had retired to Jerusalem and were allegedly being harassed.
(Howe, Power Peddlers, 285)

[14] Diane Lichtenstein, "Emma Lazarus," Jewish Virtual Library, accessed January 1, 2014, http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/lazarus.html.
Historian Jonathan Sarna calls her "the foremost advocate (to that
time) of what would become known as American Zionism" aimed at
"establishment of a free Jewish state."
Jonathan Sarna, American Judaism: A History (New Haven: Yale UP, 2004), 139-40.

[17] Dalin, "At the Summit," 31-32.
The appointee was Oscar Straus, whose brothers owned Macy's
Department Store and whom Theodore Roosevelt later named to his cabinet.
Dalin reports a humorous incident that occurred at a dinner years later
for Straus and Roosevelt:
"In his remarks, Roosevelt had stated that Straus had been appointed
on the basis of merit and ability alone; the fact that he was Jewish had
played no part in Roosevelt's decision to appoint him. A few minutes
later, in introducing Straus, [another speaker, the Jewish financier and
philanthropist Jacob] Schiff, who was a bit deaf and had evidently not
heard Roosevelt's remarks, recounted how Roosevelt had sought his advice
as to who would be the most suitable and eminent Jewish leader to
appoint to his cabinet."
The 30-year pattern ended in 1917 when Turkey broke off diplomatic
relations after the U.S. declared war on Germany; after the war Turkey
no longer controlled Palestine.

[27]
While Brandeis' beloved uncle, after whom he was named, had been a
Zionist, it appears that Brandeis himself had not become a Zionist until
later in life. The main person credited with his conversion to
Zionism was a journalist named Jacob De Haas. De Haas had been sent to
the U.S. ten years before Brandeis met him by Zionist founder Theodor
Herzl to recruit Americans to the cause.
Peter Grose, "Louis Brandeis, Arthur Balfour and a Declaration That Made History," Moment 8, no. 10 (November 1983): 27-28. Online at http://search.opinionarchives.com/Summary/Moment/V8I10P27-1.htm.
According to its website, Moment Magazine is "North America's premier Jewish magazine." It was founded in 1975 by Elie Wiesel and Leonard Fein.

[29] Urofsky, Melvin.Louis D. Brandeis: A Life.
New York, NY: Pantheon Books, 2009, 438. Urofsky, an Israel partisan
and Brandeis champion, while noting that the campaign against Brandeis
centered on ethical questions, attributed the motivation to political
differences.

[30]
Regarding the possible role of anti-Semitism in the opposition to
Brandeis, it seems that his ethnicity may actually have enhanced his
chances. Many Jewish leaders, while disliking his Zionism, felt they
must support him. Similarly, many non-Jews, fearful of being called
anti-Semitic, remained silent. Journalist Gus Karger reported at the
time that "many Senators who might base their opposition to him on sound
and logical grounds, if he were a Presbyterian, are reluctant to take a
stand, lest their opposition be misconstrued." (Urofsky, Brandeis, 440)

[31] Bruce Allen Murphy, The Brandeis/Frankfurter Connection: The Secret Political Activities of Two Supreme Court Justices (New York: Oxford UP, 1982), 10.
Bruce Murphy is a judicial biographer and scholar of American
Constitutional law and politics and is the Fred Morgan Kirby Professor
of Civil Rights at Lafayette College. He holds a PhD from the University
of Virginia. This book received a Certificate of Merit from the
American Bar Association.

[41]
It is surprising how extremely buried this information remains. After I
posted Sarah Schmidt's article on it (see footnote below) online in
2010 and mentioned it in my online and print drafts of this book,
another book released this year mentions the society, but fails to
report accurately on its covert nature and significant activities.

[42] A positive review of the book in Foreign Policy
stated: "[Grose] is not a one-sided partisan; he exposes the faults and
foibles of all concerned (above all, the State Department). What slant
the book has derives from his chosen theme: that America and the Jewish
state are 'bonded together' through history and shared values."
John C. Campbell, "Israel in the Mind of America," review of Israel in the Mind of America,by Peter Grose, Foreign Affairs, Spring 1984. Online at http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/38470/john-c-campbell/israel-in-the-mind-of-america.

[43] Sarah Schmidt, "The Parushim: A Secret Episode in American Zionist History," American Jewish Historical Quarterly 65, Dec (1975): 121-39. Online at http://ifamericansknew.org/history/parushim.html.
Sarah Schmidt, Horace M. Kallen: Prophet of American Zionism (Brooklyn, NY: Carlson, 1995), 77.
Dr. Sarah Schmidt teaches courses related to modern Jewish history at
the Rothberg International School of the Hebrew University of
Jerusalem, with an emphasis both on Israeli and American Jewish history.
She is also associated with the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs
(focused on "Israeli Security, Regional Diplomacy, and International
Law") See http://jcpa.org/researcher/dr-sarah-schmidt.
Peter Grose, Israel in the Mind of America (New York: Knopf, 1984).
"Peter Grose Papers, 1942-1999: Preliminary Finding Aid," Princeton University Library, accessed January 1, 2014, http://findingaids.princeton.edu/collections/MC227.
Peter Grose was an editor and specialist on the history of intelligence and an editor for the New York Times and Foreign Affairs.
He held a position at the Belfer Center for Science and International
Affairs, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. He is
the author of a number of books on modern U.S. history.

[46] Grose, Mind of America, 53.
The Menorah Society was also a largely a Zionist organization, and
was similarly secretive about this. An essay from the time states that
the Menorah Society "camouflaged its Zionism by organizing itself as a
purely nonpartisan body so as to obtain a larger membership." The writer
reports that "practically all the leaders and active workers in the
Menorah organization are Zionists… the thing of which the Menorah boasts
now…is its little list of prize conversions to Zionism."
Mark Raider, "Pioneers and Pace-Setters: Boston Jews and American Zionism," in Jews of Boston, ed. Jonathan Sarna, et al (New Haven: Yale UP, Combined Jewish Philanthropies of Greater Boston, 2005), 256.

[47] Sarah Schmidt, "The Parushim: A Secret Episode in American Zionist History," American Jewish Historical Quarterly 65, Dec (1975): 121-39. Online at http://www.councilforthenationalinterest.org/news/israellobby/item/1217-the-parushim-a-secret-episode-in-american-zionist-history.
Schmidt writes: "The image that emerges of the Parushim is that of a
secret underground guerilla force determined to influence the course of
events in a quiet, anonymous way."
Schmidt gives the entire oath and response of the Parushim initiation:
"A member swearing allegiance to the Parushim felt something of the
spirit of commitment to a secret military fellowship. At the initiation
ceremony the head of the Order informed him:
'You are about to take a step which will bind you to a single cause
for all your life. You will for one year be subject to an absolute duty
whose call you will be impelled to heed at any time, in any place, and
at any cost. And ever after, until our purpose shall be accomplished,
you will be fellow of a brotherhood whose bond you will regard as
greater than any other in your life—dearer than that of family, of
school, of nation. By entering this brotherhood, you become a
self-dedicated soldier in the army of Zion. Your obligation to Zion
becomes your paramount obligation... It is the wish of your heart and of
your own free will to join our fellowship, to share its duties, its
tasks, and its necessary sacrifices.'
The initiate responded by swearing:
'Before this council, in the name of all that I hold dear and holy, I
hereby vow myself, my life, my fortune, and my honor to the restoration
of the Jewish nation, -to its restoration as a free and autonomous
state, by its laws perfect in justice, by its life enriching and
preserving the historic speech, the culture, and the ideals of the
Jewish people.
To this end I dedicate myself in behalf of the Jews, my people, and in behalf of all mankind.
To this end I enroll myself in the fellowship of the Parushim. I
pledge myself utterly to guard and to obey and to keep secret the laws
and the labor of the fellowship, its existence and its aims. Amen.'"
Schmidt reports that Henrietta Szold, founder of Hadassah, the
Women's Zionist Organization, was an early member of the Parushim.
She writes: "Brandeis … began to assign the Parushim to carry out
special 'missions' for him. In particular the Parushim were to serve as a
school for leaders, and under Kallen's direction its members initially
became the leading activists of the reorganized American
Zionist movement."
Among those invited to be members were "Alexander Dushkin, an
authority on Jewish education; Dr. I. L. Kandel, an educator then with
the Carnegie Foundation and Teacher's College of Columbia University;
Israel Thurman, a lawyer and 'Harvard man,' who would be used to
propagandize among young lawyers; Nathan C. House, a 'Columbia man,'
high school teacher, who could work out plans for training Jewish high
school boys," I.J. Biskind, a doctor in Cleveland; Stephen S. Wise,
prominent Reform Rabbi and leader in the Jewish Community; Oscar Straus;
Alexander Sachs, a graduate student in economics at Columbia
University; David Shapiro, an agricultural student at the University of
California; Jesse Sampter, a writer and poetess; Elisha Friedman,
President of the Collegiate Zionist League.
According to Schmidt, "The Pittsburgh Program seems to have been the last of the projects of the Parushim."

[48] A. Scott Berg, Wilson (New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 2013), Chapter 6. (Accessed online, page number not available)
Berg writes that Kallen went on to a "stellar career," but mentions
nothing of his Zionism and creation of a secret society. When
Wilson hired Kallen, he became the college's first Jewish lecturer.

[51] Ben Halpern, "The Americanization of Zionism, 1880-1930," in American Zionism: Mission and Politics
by Jeffrey Gurock (New York: Routledge, 1998), 125-43. (Part of a 13
Volume series edited by Jeffrey S. Gurock published by the American
Jewish Historical Society.)

[53] Grose, Mind of America,40.
Another organization that chose to work secretively was the American
Jewish Committee (AJC), though this organization was largely
non-Zionist in its early decades. Author Marianne R. Sanua describes its
activities in her authorized biography of the organization, Let Us Prove Strong: The American Jewish Committee, 1945-2006.
Except where noted otherwise, the following information comes from pages 3-27.
The AJC was founded in 1906 by wealthy banker Jacob H. Schiff, who
invited "fifty-seven prominent Jews across the country" to explore the
creation of a body to protect Jews both at home and abroad. "On the
appointed day," Sanua writes, "rabbis, businessmen, scientists, judges,
ambassadors, scholars, writers, and philanthropists gathered in New York
from Baltimore, Boston, Cincinnati, Chicago, Milwaukee, New Orleans,
Philadelphia, Washington D.C., Richmond, and as far away as San
Francisco."
Although part of the original group withdrew, fearing such an entity
would reinforce gentile beliefs in powerful Jewish cabals, the others
went forward and in many ways created just such an entity.
While the existence of the AJC, unlike the Parushim, was not kept
hidden, many of its activities were. As a leader wrote about its
earliest days, "The new body was not to engage in publicity except as an
instrument for achieving objectives."
According to Sanua, the AJC desired "in general to remain as
unobtrusive as possible in conducting its work, preferring to use the
names and addresses of supposedly nonsectarian organizations instead of
its own."
When necessary," Sanua writes, the AJC "would create the name of an
essentially fictitious organization to hide the fact that American Jews
were behind the effort at all."
In the 1930s and 1940s, Sanua, reports, "its agents went undercover,
infiltrated meetings, and compiled a list of 50,000 offenders [alleged
anti-Semites or German sympathizers] whose names were shared with the
FBI…"
According to Sanua, scores of Americans were sent to jail "because of
the efforts of the AJC," which, out of a total of 50,000 "offenders,"
raises the question of exactly who was on this list, and why.
In 1944 undercover AJC agents attended the first national convention
of the America First Party, which had opposed entering European wars.
The AJC charged that its presidential candidate, Gerald Smith, was
anti-Semitic, a charge that Sanua says he denied, accusing the ADL and
others of using the millions of dollars at their disposal to "hound
innocent Christian nationalists with their Gestapo techniques." (Sanua, Let Us Prove Strong, 41)
The AJC successfully pushed for federal investigations into Smith,
and in 1946 he was called before the House Committee on Un-American
Activities. Sanua notes that the AJC had "pulled all their strings in
Washington to put him there." (Sanua, Let Us Prove Strong, 41)
These AJC activities continued after the war, Sanua reports, and
notes, "Again, secrecy and behind-the scenes work was the key. Most of
the written records of these activities remain closed to the public to
the present day."
While the AJC began as a non-Zionist organization and opposed the
immediate creation of a Jewish state for the AJC's first few decades,
its activities at times were helpful to the Zionist cause. The
organization endorsed the Balfour Declaration, some members provided
financial support for Jewish settlement and institutions in Palestine,
and for a time AJC representatives served with Zionists in the Jewish
Agency for Palestine.
Eventually, over the objections of many members, the AJC became
Zionist, and in the watershed year of 1947, Sanua reports, the AJC threw
its weight behind the Zionist cause, using its connections at high
levels of the U.S. government, including in the White House, to help
push through a UN partition plan intended to create a Jewish state in
Palestine.
In October 1948, Sanua writes, the AJC's executive committee resolved
to work for "financial aid from the United States – which it achieved
the following year."
Marianne Sanua, Let Us Prove Strong: The American Jewish Committee, 1945-2006 (Waltham, MA: Brandeis UP, 2007), 3-27.
According to journalists Abba A. Solomon and Norman Solomon, the AJC
"adjusted to the triumph of an ideology – militant Jewish nationalism –
that it did not share." The Solomons quote a January 1948 AJC position
paper that described the actions of "militant Zionists," who were "then
ascendant among Jews in Palestine and in the United States." The AJC
warned that this group served "no less monstrosity than the idol of the
State as the complete master not only over its own immediate subjects
but also over every living Jewish body and soul the world over, beyond
any consideration of good or evil."
According to the Solomons, such concerns "became more furtive after
Israel became a nation later in 1948." By 1950 debate over Zionism was
to be permissible only within the Jewish community – it was to be, in
the Solomons' words, "inaudible to gentiles." Soon, the Solomons
contend, even debate among Jews became "marginal, then unmentionable."
Norman Solomon and Abba A. Solomon, "The Blind Alley of J Street and Liberal American Zionism," Huffington Post, January 22, 2014, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/norman-solomon/the-blind-alley-of-j-stre_b_4644658.html.

[54] Grose, Mind of America, 54.
American professor Horace Kallen was a major mover and the original founder of the Parushim.
In his book American Zionism: Mission and Politics,
Jeffrey Gurock writes: "Brandeis conducted a vigorous search of his own
for 'college men,' particularly young graduates of Harvard Law School,
whom he co-opted to leadership or special assignments for the regular
and emergency Zionist organizations he controlled. Among those recruited
were men like Felix Frankfurter, Judge Julian Mack, Walter Lippmann,
Bernard Flexner (one of the founders of the Council on Foreign
Relations), Benjamin Cohen (high official under both FDR and Truman),
and others who achieved national and international eminence."
Jeffery Gurock, American Zionism: Missions and Politics (London: Routledge, 1998), 135.
Parushim creator Kallen is known as being one of the fathers of
"cultural pluralism," opposing the highly popular "melting pot" view, in
which immigrants from all over the world would join together as
non-hyphenated Americans. See, for example: Michael Alexander, Jazz Age Jews (Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP, 2001), 90.
Most Americans and new immigrants – including Jewish Americans – were
opposed to Kallen's creation of cultural pluralism and hyphenated
Americans, preferring assimilation and the melting pot. See, for
example, Cohen, Americanization of Zionism, 18: "Most [Jews] had
found their promised land in America." One of the primary goals in the
U.S. for some Zionists leaders was, in Cohen's words, "to guard against
assimilation." (Cohen, Americanization of Zionism, 22) "The popular melting-pot theory was antithetical to the heart of the Zionist message." (Cohen, Americanization of Zionism, 15)

[56] Neff, Pillars, 12; Grose, Mind of America, 57-58.
Brandeis also "played a decisive role in planning Wilson's economic
program, and particularly in formulating the Federal Reserve."
Benjamin Ginsberg, The Fatal Embrace: Jews and the State (Chicago: University of Chicago, 1993), 93.

[57] Neff, Pillars, 12; John & Hadawi, Palestine Diary, 59-60.
Felix Frankfurter's work on behalf of Zionism spanned many years.
FDR was to appoint him to the Supreme Court in 1939, and even before
this time he used his "access to the president to bring Zionist issues
to his attention and urge his intercession on behalf of the Zionist
cause. (Christison, Perceptions, 47)
"At Brandeis's behest, Frankfurter also became involved with American
Zionism. In 1917 Frankfurter accompanied Ambassador Henry Morgenthau to
Turkey and Egypt to see what could be done for the settlements in
Palestine during the World War. Frankfurter also attended the peace
conference in Paris as a representative of the American Zionist movement
and as a liaison for Brandeis." (Alexander, Jazz Age Jews, 91)
At the request of Brandeis, financier Jacob Schiff had donated funds
to have a position created for Frankfurter at Harvard early in his
career. (Alexander, Jazz Age Jews, 83).

[sidebar: jihad is the new crusade. Words as Sword and Swords too]

By James Abourezk

Having studied
enough American Indian Tribes over the years, I
have grown accustomed to creation myths that
each Tribe assigns itself as its reason for
being. And the definition of “chutzpah” that
I’ve been taught is that of a young man on trial
for murdering his parents, who throws himself on
the mercy of the Court on grounds that he is an
orphan.

That, as Alison Weir has made clear, is Israel’s
situation. In
Against Our Better Judgment, Ms. Weir
writes with great clarity how the Zionist
movement was able to move politicians, both in
America and in England, to legalize a most
illegal act–that of stealing an entire nation,
and crying foul when those from whom it was
stolen complained, then tried to retake the
land.

Ms. Weir’s in
depth research to expose Zionist actions in
earlier times provides a solid basis for her
conclusions about creating Israel from a land
called Palestine. And she documents the intense
lobbying done by Israel’s Zionist creators in
order to legalize an action that was clearly
illegal.

We are now
living with the consequences of that bit of
grand theft, i.e., the continuing violence in
the Middle East, affecting everything America
might want to do in the Middle East. We only
recently have witnessed Bibi Netanyahu’s so far
failed effort to have America invade and conquer
Iran, a country that obviously is too much of a
mouthful for Israel to bite off. Suddenly, even
Barak Obama recognizes the danger in following
Israel’s advice on how to conduct itself in the
Middle East. The President tiptoed to the edge
of the abyss but backed away when Israel’s
trained seals in the U.S. Congress tried to push
the nation over the edge.

We saw
Congressional supporters of Israel shamefully
initiating the dozens of applauses by the Joint
Session of Congress when they entertained Prime
Minister Netanyahu, who obliged the assembled
mass with aggressive applause lines, designed to
favor those who have a liking of violence and to
show how Israel is “America’s staunchest ally”
in the Middle East.

During the
1970s, when I was a member of the U.S. Senate, I
was waiting my turn to testify on the Middle
East situation before the Senate Foreign
Relations Committee. As is the custom, the
Administration witness was testifying ahead of
me. I do not recall his name, but I felt very
sorry for him when New York’s Senator Javits
asked from the dais, “Please explain why Israel
is our most important ally in the Middle East.”The poor fellow
did not have an answer. Granted, he was a lower
level State Department official, but his lack of
an answer was indicative of the lack of a story
provided to him by his seniors in the State
Department.

So Sen. Javits
asked him again, and again, and again, trying to
have a statement from some government official
which Israel’s Lobby could use in its propaganda
campaign to maintain Israel’s lofty position in
the American mind. But the State Department
official was unable to find an answer, which
left Sen. Javits and his cohorts to try some
other avenue. The Israel-is-a-vital-ally
shibboleth has since been made into an overused
slogan by supporters of Israel.

But each time I
hear that phrase, “staunchest ally,” I think of
the American sailors on the U.S.S. Liberty, who,
during the 1967 Israeli-Arab War, died when the
Israeli military was order to destroy its
“ally’s” intelligence ship. During that act of
friendship, America’s staunchest ally killed
some 34 American sailors, and wounded another
170.I also think of
Jonathan Pollard, an American employee of our
Pentagon, who sold what has been described as “a
truckload” of the Pentagon’s secrets to Israel.
I say “sold,” because Israel paid Pollard for
the secrets, which Israel then traded to the
Soviet Union for that country’s relaxation of
rules with respect to Jewish emigration from the
Soviet Union to Israel.

With Ms. Weir’s
well researched history in mind, I am forced to
think of the cadre of American journalists who
lately have assigned “oil” as the reason for
George Bush’s Folly–the invasion of Iraq in
2003. They say nothing of the well known fact
that George Bush had a number of Israel’s
supporters giving him advice on the issue of
Iraq. I’ve lost count of the billions of
American dollars that were sucked up by that
war, as well as the precious American lives that
were lost to satisfy Israel’s agents in the Bush
Administration, those who convinced President
Bush to do something that Israel wanted, but
knowing it was better if “America did it.”
President Obama should be applauded for refusing
to fall into the same trap with respect to
Syria.

This provocative
book documents a history that is essential in
understanding today’s world. Scholarly, yet
readable, it is a must for all Americans. We
all need to know what we have spent by coddling
Israel and its aggressions, and why the cost has
become more than we have bargained for.

James
Abourezk is a former U.S. Senator from
South Dakota who plunged into the Middle East morass
when he saw the cost to our country of Israel’s
efforts to connive to have our country do Israel’s
dirty work. His memoir, Advise
& Dissent, has recently been re-published, along
with a new Introduction by Sen. Fred Harris.

1 comment:

Make up the most VileEvil religious practice, METZITZAH B'PEH, and then use this act of mutilation to cut the male's penis and break the bond to our own humanity. Then, convince the brain mutilated in the APARTHEID MINDS that the chosen get to mass murder their own species and worship this as chosen. Century 21, we can do much better than to continue allowing this TRIBE to faction and jihad the crusade into extinction of our own species.